Source: Ateendriyo on Twitter.
The new doctor woke up with a start and looked outside his window to see the fog covered mountains. Arun had not even spent a few months sitting back in Dehradun when he had been posted to Joshimath district. He had recently joined the state medical services, and despite his parent’s remonstrations, he had wanted to serve in the state far flung, rural areas. The state health services had only just launched a small scheme, where doctors could serve for short periods in difficult to reach areas, adn then return to their private practices.
Arun had expected that he’ll be sent off somewhere in the low lying Terai region of Garhwal, close to home. Instead, he had received orders to reach an isolated village, Narain Nagar, in Joshimath district. The initial days had been pleasant to say the least. Very few people actually lived in the village, which lay right on a triangular cliff, below which two rivers merged and moved their way down to Joshimath. With few patients, and with fewer cares, Arun adjusted to village life, eating food at the small govt officials mess, and talking long walks during the daytime. He had a passion for trekking, which he joked was an infection he picked up from one of his friends who was an army cadet in Dehradun. Hardly any trekking trail had remained unvisited, and so, Arun liked Narain Nagar’s isolated trekking spots.
Once, returning from an afternoon trip, Arun ran into a few villagers. It was a crisp, early evening and They seemed surprised seeing him returning from the mountains. Arun, they said, had good stamina, especially for a city bred, to have woken up from his afternoon nap and then trekked up and then back to the village. Arun smiled, and said that unlike the villagers, he did not sleep during the day. With an air of pure confidence that only a doctor can generate at will, he said that sleeping during the daytime was harmful to health. Never did he sleep during the day, and city life never slowed down enough for such leisurely siestas.
Arun was about to launch into yet another of his impromptu health lectures, when he noticed that the villagers did not seem even the mild bit interested - on the contrary, they were a bit reticent. He prodded them, asking why they seemed a restricted, expecting the typical villagers’ ignorance to be countered quickly by his medical expertise.
The villagers were quick and forthcoming when asked. “Saheb, you must sleep during the day. The village shuts down from the period of 2 to 4 in the afternoon, and it is necessary that everyone sleep. Everyone must sleep, otherwise… Otherwise…” The villagers, in their vapid anxiety, actually shuddered as they said the next words - “Otherwise, you’ll be carried off.” Arun smirked, but now he was interested in whatever horror story the villagers had convinced themselves of. Turns out, the villagers compulsorily rested during the daytime, and did not venture out. The village, it was said, was haunted by a particular spirit, a Daakini, a she ghost, who would abduct men, women and children who ventured outside during the afternoon. No one, it seemed, knew where the people went, but then, no one had ever even glanced outside their homes during the afternoon.
Arun gravely nodded in reply. He understood the local custom was meant to allow everyone in the village some rest during the day time, and perhaps the villagers had built up the story having nothing else to do in this generally placid place. When there’s nothing to do, people make stories and this was another story. With years, perhaps, the actual reason had been lost, and now the story alone remained.
So, Arun shrugged off the tale, as he shrugged off so many beliefs of the villagers. And, so he went on with his afternoon treks, enjoying the many untouched trails that led from the village to the hills above and the two rivers below. A few days later, Arun finished up his day in the OPD and walked to his small residence. He hadn’t been sleeping well, which he attributed partially to the new episodes of an action packed TV show he had laid his hands on, as well as to the new locale.
So, Arun quickly finished his lunch, which was a typical Pahadi daal, and a chutney of hill cucumbers. He smiled a little as he lay down on his bed, at the villagers’ tale and how perhaps it was best to comply with their custom, even if for just one day. Sleep, as he had expected, came fitfully, with his old patients, folks he had seen years ago during college, and his childhood home all dancing about. Yet, somehow, he was not comfortable. A restlessness seemed to echo in his dreams, and unsurprisingly, the new doctor woke up with a start and looked outside his window to see the fog covered mountains. It had been raining all throughout the day, as it often does in the mountains, and underneath his sheets, Arun struggled to get out of his bed and to his OPD. It was early evening, as he could tell from the light filtering through his shuttered windows, and despite his dreams, the bed seemed too warm to give up so soon.
He heard it, then. It was one of his nursing staff, calling out to him. Arun, Arun!! Hemorrhage, woman, bear attack!! Arun threw his sheets off as adrenaline rushed through his veins and years of medical training kicked in. Barely putting his slippers on, he rushed to the treatment room, and saw a woman in the gurney, howling in agony as blood; red, pulsating, horrifying blood, rushed in spurts from her abdomen and arms. His nursing assistant was no where to be seen, perhaps the woman’s shrieks or her situation had scared him off.
He rushed, quickly placing a large gauge IV needle and started pumping her full crystalloids, somehow managing to keep her blood pressure from collapsing. He quickly covered her arms in bandages, ignoring for a moment her abdomen which would require more detailed assessment. The arms had long cuts, deep and vicious, clearly made by a large animal. A few places the animal had hit the arteries, and made it quite a challenge to manage the woman’s case. Yet, Arun finished up the tourniquet placement and bandaging quickly, and then moved to the abdomen.
When you have a case of an abdominal injury, Arun heard his old surgery professor’s reedy voice repeat in his mind, first sanitize your hands and then explore the stab wound, making sure the abdomen’s peritoneum, or encasing layer, is not violated. And, so Arun did, insinuating his gloved finger into the stab wound, assessing whether the animal had not done any deeper, internal damage. He did so, and there seemed to be no injury, in fact, he did not seem to hit the abdominal encasing. Strange, Arun, wondered.
The more he probed, the more it seemed that the abdomen was intact. His discomfiture remained, and then he realized, recoiling with horror, that there simply was nothing there. No peritoneal encasing, no organs, nothing. Just an empty stomach. Arun looked up at the lady. This was the first time he had actually looked at the patient, since he had been attending purely to the woman’s arms and abdomen. The woman’s eyes were white, blindingly white eyes which mesmerized. Something inside - Arun felt it before Arun himself saw it. Her eyes had cat like ires, over which her eyelids blinked in a face of absolute, still calm. Her eyelids blinked, transversely, going sideways; Arun seemed almost lifted off the ground and pushed back, with the eerie smile on that woman’s unnerving him beyond measure.
The woman lept up from the gurney, and with a feline ease, walked towards him. “They told, you, did they not? To sleep during the day. You did not listen” Arun called out to his nursing staff, and again, he realized with pure dread, that he had not seen him since he had woken up. Only his voice, and only that. “You are alone, Arun, alone in this place.” She smiled, and with a jerk, let loose her long nails.
Arun woke up with a start, his sheets drenched in sweat, and looked outside his window to see the darkness of the hour. The dream had taken him, the villagers would later say to him, and the Daakini had paid him a visit to warn him. Always, for the next year that he stayed in Narain Nagar, Arun would sleep during the day. He knew better, by then, to not earn another visit of the Daakini. The villagers told him about the woman, an expecting mother, had been making her way to her maternal home, up in the mountains, when she had been attacked by a bear. Whether she was indeed the Daakini, Arun would never know, and nor did he ever ask.
(Finish)